Page 26 of The Mafia's Surprise Gift

I couldn’t decide, but my post-orgasm clarity did make one thing clear.

Rocco leaving all those years ago may have been the best thing he ever did. There was no way in hell I wanted my son around someone as dangerous as him.

11

ROCCO

“You need to get some sleep.” Dino placed another glass of scotch in front of me, then placed his hands on his hips. “You’re no use to anyone if you’re too exhausted to stand.”

“Not yet,” I replied, taking the glass and lifting it to my lips. “Did she get home okay?”

“Yes.”

“How was she?”

Dino shrugged and scraped one hand through his hair. “Pissed. She didn’t say anything on the drive home, and I was honestly too scared to get into it with her.”

“Scared?” I raised my brow.

“Yeah, man. You heard her. All she’s thinking about is her kid, and we put her in a dangerous situation.”

Dino’s words dropped a pebble in the calmness I’d managed to create in his absence. I was a man who preferred to be out in the heart of things, fighting alongside those willing to lay down their lives. Being catapulted to the leader removed me from that. I was forced to stand back and watch because my father’s death was still too near to the hearts of the men I was leading.

“We didn’t put her in a dangerous situation,” I replied tightly, draining my glass. “The whole thing was fucked.” I slammed my glass down on the desk and winced as the action pulled at my freshly stitched wound across my bicep. A bullet grazed too close for comfort, but not enough to be any kind of issue.

“Okay, fine. But she doesn’t see that, does she?” Dino pointed out, and he leaned against the desk. “She got one hell of a bombshell dropped on her amid gunfire and blood. Hell, when we were in here waiting for you, I had to keep walking past her because she was so still I kept fearing she’d die from the stress.”

“I want to—” My words died as the door opened and Jian strode in, his stained shirt hanging loose around his shoulders. He wiped crimson from his fingertips with a bloodied rag and sniffed deeply as he approached.

“Boss.”

“Jian.” I ran one concerned eye over him, then focused on his face. “What did you learn?”

“Well, as of right now, all three of those fuckers are dead.”

“Dead?” Dino surged upward. “The fuck can we do with dead?”

“Relax.” Jian held up one hand. “I killed the first two in front of the third. A few digits later, the threat of being dickless was enough to make him talk.”

“And?”

“They’re under the Russian banner.”

“Fuck!” Rage surged up and suffocated my next breath like a gust of smoke billowing from a fire. I snatched up the glass and threw it hard at one of the empty bookshelves, where it shattered into a thousand pieces. “Vito won’t let me hear the end of this.”

“So the Russians did this?” Dino spoke like his jaw was wired shut, containing his anger better than me. “Did you get a name?”

“Nah.” Jian shook his head and puffed out his cheeks. “He kept insisting it was an anonymous bounty even after I choked his limp dick off. He didn’t have a name to give, but it’s a start.”

The Russians, huh? The letter they sent promising to honor the old laws of grief was clearly bullshit, a ruse just to put us on the back burner thinking there was still some old blood loyalty running through those Russian veins.

“What do you want to do?” Jian balled up the rag and tossed it directly into the wastepaper basket. “You want us to strike back immediately?”

“Yes.” I nodded tightly, pacing back and forth behind my desk. “But hit them where it hurts. I don’t want any of this light threat bullshit. I want their clubs burned to the ground. I want the garages nuked. Anyone so much as breathes Russkie, and I want their head.”

“You’re starting a war,” Dino warned.

“They fucking started the war,” I growled out. “And someone call Vito. Try not to let him gloat too much.”

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